Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire
  • omnibus

A Racial Reckoning at Doctors Without Borders
Mara Kardas-Nelson, Ngozi Cole, Sean Campbell
26 Sep 2021
A Racial Reckoning at Doctors Without Borders
A Racial Reckoning at Doctors Without Borders

The Nobel Peace Prize winning organization Doctors Without Borders has been accused of racist policies which privilege so-called ex-pat workers from North America and Europe over local medical staff working in the global south. Local workers speak of mistreatment, wage discrimination, and being unprotected during conflicts and pandemics.

For decades, Doctors Without Borders has been admired for bringing desperately needed medical care to crises around the globe and pioneering modern-day humanitarian aid. It’s an organization with radical roots, promising to do whatever it takes to deliver life-saving care to people in need. But now, it’s struggling to address institutional racism.

The organization, also known by its French acronym MSF, has about 63,000 people working in 88 countries. While foreign doctors parachuting into crisis zones get most of the attention, 90 percent of the work is being done by local health workers. 

In the summer of 2020, more than 1,000 current and former staffers wrote a letter calling out institutional racism at MSF. They say that MSF operates a two-tiered tiered system that favors  foreign doctors, or expat doctors, over local health workers. 

On the eve of MSF’s 50th anniversary, reporters Mara Kardas-Nelson, Ngozi Cole and Sean Campbell talked to about 100 current and former MSF workers to investigate how deep these issues run. We meet Dr. Indira Govender, a South African doctor who in 2011 accepted what she thought was her dream job with MSF in South Africa, only to get a front-row seat to the organization’s institutional racism. Even though she’s officially the second-in-command of her project, she says it feels like a select group of European expats and White South Africans are running the show.  

Then, Kardas-Nelson and Cole take us inside the inequities MSF staffers experienced during the 2014 Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone. While expat doctors had their meals together and socialized, local health workers were left out. But inequities ran deeper. If expat doctors got sick, they would be evacuated out of the country, while local workers didn’t get that care – they were treated at the same center where they worked. Kardas-Nelson and Cole reported the story from Sierra Leone in the Spring of 2021 and spoke to former National MSF clinicians.

Finally, we talk about what can change in humanitarian aid. Govender is part of a group of current and former MSF workers called Decolonize MSF. While she and others are pushing the organization to commit to changes that address racial inequities, some are skeptical about what will actually change. 

This week’s episode was created in partnership with the global news site Insider.

These interviews originally appeared in the Reveal News podcast.

 

Doctors Without Borders
Racial Discrimination
NGOs

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles. Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


Related Stories

Alexander Rubinstein
Black Money, Black Flags: How USAID Paved the Way for Syria’s Militant Takeover
22 January 2025
The United States leverages soft power through NGOs such as USAID.
John Perry
How the Human Rights Industry Manufactures Consent for “Regime Change”
08 January 2025
The international human rights apparatus comprises a web of organizations, task forces, committees, and the United Nations itself.
Travis Ross
Imperialist feminism: Canada funds compliance from Haitian human rights groups
02 October 2024
Canada uses Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) to exert soft power and maintain its interests in Haiti.
Flooding in Somalia
Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
Climate Profiteers Exploit Somali Suffering
20 December 2023
NGOs and other climate profiteers treat Somalia as a poster child for global warming.

More Stories


  • BAR Radio Logo
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Black Agenda Radio July 11, 2025
    11 Jul 2025
    In this week’s segment, we discuss how the UK government protects Israel through terrorism statute lawfare, and media manipulation. But first, Donald Trump announced an early end to Temporary…
  • save TPS protest
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Haitian Communities Devastated by Efforts to End Temporary Protective Status
    11 Jul 2025
    The Trump administration recently announced the end of Temporary Protective Status (TPS) for 500,000 Haitians currently living in the United States. The end of TPS would end their ability to work…
  • Palestine Action
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    UK State Repression on Behalf of Israel
    11 Jul 2025
    Roger McKenzie is the international editor of the UK-based Morning Star, the only English-language socialist daily newspaper in the world. He joins us from Oxford to discuss how the UK supports…
  • Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    New York Times Joins a White Supremacist In Attacking Zohran Mamdani
    09 Jul 2025
    Zohran Mamdani, the choice of Democratic Party voters in New York City, is anathema to the billionaire class. So much so that the New York Times elevated the work of a white supremacist in an effort…
  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    EDITORIAL: Even During Disaster, The Pittsburgh Courier, 1927
    09 Jul 2025
    “Neither disaster, catastrophe, nor calamity can take precedence … over the color-caste system.”
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us